…a boomer muses about life, change, joys, sorrows and freedom from the prison of corporate life.

Proceeding To Plan C…

I keep telling myself that if life were easy all the time we wouldn’t really appreciate the good normal times. Yup, that’s what I keep telling myself. However I must admit that lately I feel a bit like that little guy on the left.

Anyway, when I last left you, I was going to try to adjust to some prisms put in plain glasses to make my double vision easier to handle. Unfortunately, one of the prisms was the wrong number (they don’t make the number I need,) so what I ended up with was extremely blurry vision. It was a total bust. $20 for the plain glasses (my ophthalmologist got me a deal) and $35 for each prism, none of this covered by my insurance because I didn’t take the vision plan. $90 for more frustration. Lovely.

About this time I came upon the Bible verse, Matthew 17:20 that ends …”If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Well, I started out this ordeal having loads and loads of big-time faith and was totally sure that I’d be cured almost immediately. After days and weeks went by, it became harder to maintain that enthusiasm. But seeing this verse last Monday felt like a message. I needed to start over with faith as a grain of mustard seed, not as a big honking elephant in a parade. So I did. Baby steps.

I happened to be searching Google images later that day when I saw a page with the word “diplopia.” (For those of you new here, that means “double vision.” That’s your new word for the day!) Anyway I followed the link and ended up on a page that was talking about eye patches. It said for double vision to be sure to wear the patch on the good eye, so that the muscles of the troubled eye would have to work harder and get stronger. My eye doctor had said that my right eye had the most inflamed muscles and the fact they couldn’t track with the left eye was what made my vision double.

Right then I had an epiphany. All this time I’ve been thinking that my eye muscles must still be inflamed, despite the fact that I’ve been on one of the most powerful steroids you can take for a month and a half. But, reading this made me realize that perhaps the inflammation has gone down, but that the muscles, which haven’t been doing anything for almost three months, are just very weak. That happens with muscles in your body if you don’t use them. Right? About then an imaginary light appeared above my head. “Hark! What is yonder light? Could it be the slightest glimmer of, dare I say it? HOPE? Methinks it could be!” I immediately removed the prisms from the plain glasses and put black paper in the left side, determined the wear them at least an hour a day, if not more, to start to strengthen those muscles.

As I continued to read, I found some exercises to strengthen eye muscles. Two of them didn’t make much sense to me. But one of them was tantalizing. In it, you concentrate on something, like a pen, that’s six inches from your eyes, for five seconds. Then you glance at something twenty feet away for five seconds, then back for five seconds, then far, etc., etc. You do this twenty times several times a day. I tried it, staring at a pen, then glancing at the television. And for the FIRST TIME IN A LONG TIME there was only ONE television! I was so excited that I held it too long and the TV morphed back into two. I do this kind of thing all day every day now. Sometimes it works beautifully and sometimes not so much, especially outside. I still can’t drive with both eyes. And I still can’t seem to manage to watch a whole show on TV without seeing double. But I won’t give up. The fact that it works even sometimes, is encouraging. It takes time for weak muscles to strengthen and I’ve only been doing the patch glasses and exercises a few days.

It may be nothing. But hey, it could be something…okay a very tiny something…maybe something just about the size of a mustard seed?

I always say that progress is progress and it sounds like you’re making some. I think you’ve got the right attitude and I know you’ve got enough pluck for several people so just keep fightin’ the good fight! Still rootin’ for ya … 😉

Nicole, Just Me & Jenn –
Thank you all for your comments and support, which I hope you know I appreciate so much. I’m not yet at the point where I can say it’s working at all. Yesterday I had some really bad moments when I went outside and the whole world was whirling in double vision. I hate to admit it, but it made me sad and weepy for the rest of the day. Maybe it’s because I WANT it to work so badly and sometimes it just seems to be getting worse. But I shall keep trying…